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Top 20 Wrestlers Who Changed Their Name And Fell Off The Map

There are many bizarre things in pro wrestling that become a normal part of it due to the strange world in which the sport exists. Wrestlers change their names very frequently. Bigger promotions will want to own the rights to the performer’s name as a way to control and gain as much profit as possible off of the wrestler. WWE will force a wrestler to change their name most of the time and it has led to various shifts in the wrestler’s career. A talent will have to rebuild if released due to not having the ownership of using the name they are known as.

This prominently started in the 90s during the Monday Night Wars era. WWE and WCW wrestlers went back and forth between companies. The big contracts led to certain wrestlers having to let the company own their character name and the wrestlers would have to try to find a way to change their name when changing promotions without losing sight of an already established persona. There are other times when a wrestler will want to be the one that changes their own name. It can be beneficial to debuting a new character, but wiping the slate clean and starting from square one.

Regardless of why, the name changes tend to become an important part of wrestling. Many wrestling name changes have led to success such as Rocky Maivia becoming The Rock but there are plenty more stories of the new name leading to the wrestler's downfall. Losing a name is similar to losing one’s identity in the wrestling business and it has caused certain performers to see their relevancy completely fall apart. This list is going to take a look at the wrestlers to fall off the map following a name change. Some of these wrestlers saw their last chances at a big push and many had their career end. These are the top twenty stories of wrestlers falling off the map after a name change.

12 Curtis Axel

11 Kerwin White

10 Mr. Ass

9 The Guardian Angel

8 Scotty Goldman

7 Flash Funk

6 Beaver Cleavage

5 Kenny Dykstra

via it.wikipedia.org

4 The Red Rooster

via officialfan.proboards.com

3 Berlyn

via forum.wrestlingfigs.com

2 Big T

via ringthedamnbell.wordpress.com

1 Braden Walker

via wwe.fr

The worst case of a wrestler’s career falling apart after a name change has to be Chris Harris. As one of the biggest rising stars in TNA as both a singles star and tag team performer, Harris had huge potential and was one of the rare TNA stars to jump to WWE. On the surface, the move looked like the right decision but his wrestling career imploded once he debuted with the new name Braden Walker. The name is often met with snickering and snide comments because of an all-time bad WWE tenure that saw him become a laughingstock on the WWE ECW program due to bad promos and a weight gain. Chris Harris went from the star of tomorrow into a guy that completely fell off the map following the name change to Braden Walker.